There are two points which I would be glad to have discussed a little
this evening that are of great practical interest to us in extending
the growth of the Circle into new territory. The first, in ways of
extending the influence of the Circle, and of organizing new local
circles. I do not mean ways of conducting circles, or plans of managing
your circles, but ways of introducing the work where it is not now
introduced, and of organizing new circles in localities that know
little or nothing about the work of the C. L. S. C.
Upon this point I should be glad to have testimony or suggestions from
any person who has had experience in that line. We all feel that this
work should be done. We understand the embarrassments which prevent
this extension. Yet, by comparing notes one with the other, we may be
able to overcome the embarrassments. I should be glad this afternoon to
hear from a number in answer to this question: “How can we organize new
circles in localities that do not have them now?”
A VOICE: It seems to me, sir, if we would invite from the locality in
which we want to introduce a circle, one or two persons to visit our
own circle and see the work we are doing, we might thus incite and be
enabled to form a circle, taking the one or two members whom we have
invited as the nucleus.
MR. GILLET: I think this is a very valuable suggestion.
REV. W. D. BRIDGE: Make use of C. L. S. C. stationery.
A VOICE: I suggest this: Write an article for the local paper
explaining the objects and operations of the Circle, and appoint a time
and a place for all persons who have read the paper to meet and talk it
over.
MR. GILLET: It is surprising to find out how many editors there are
who know nothing about the C. L. S. C. It is a good plan to post them,
especially local editors. Introduce them to the little green book, and
get them to read it through, or ask them to listen while you read it to
them. Any other suggestions?
I will say in that connection that a plan was organized or developed
last year in what is known as the correspondence committee. I had
hoped that I should be able to have a report from the correspondence
committee of the Society of the Hall in the Grove. A plan was organized
before leaving Chautauqua, concerning the way in which these articles
for the papers should be written. The members of the committee wrote
articles for the local papers, and corresponded with persons in
different parts of the territory which they represented. As a result
several new local circles were formed, and a good many were induced to
become members of the circle.
A VOICE: I live in a little town of about one thousand inhabitants.
We had already organized a reading circle composed of judges, clerks,
merchants, mechanics, business men, and women. We were thinking of
taking the course of the C. L. S. C. We shall have no difficulty in
getting persons to come for the purpose of organization. I would like
to know how we should proceed after we have gotten our people together.
How would you organize and conduct a local circle?
MR. GILLET: The question has been asked several times during the
Assembly, and has been answered by numerous testimonies from persons
who are managers of local circles. The best way is the simplest,
appointing as few officers as possible, having some one who will be
responsible as conductor or leader of the circle, and then put as much
enthusiasm and life into the organization as possible. The local circle
organizations vary almost as widely as the different places in which
the circles are organized. The organizations depend on the number, the
plans, and the dispositions of the persons who belong to the circle.
There are parlor circles, church circles, union circles. Miss Kimball
will be able to answer at the office any specific question.
REV. MR. PARDOE: I believe that local circles will organize themselves,
if the people understand the nature and the methods of our C. L. S.
C. work. There is a gentleman in New York City who has a business
engagement with about two thousand of the leading weekly papers of
this country, and he proposes to insert an advertisement of any kind
in the two thousand weekly papers at a very low rate. I think it would
be a very wise thing for the parent organization at Plainfield to make
a contract with this gentleman, and throw the whole nature, methods,
objects and intentions of the C. L. S. C. work over the United States
at one bound.
MR. K. A. BURNELL: In connection with this matter of correspondence,
last week a lady told me that she was a member of the correspondence
committee, and gave me a very interesting account of the letters she
had received, and the joy that she had from the letters that came to
her.
A GENTLEMAN: In the part of Pennsylvania from which I come there are
literary societies in almost every school house. Could we not in some
way bring these societies into our circle?
MR. GILLET: Is there any way of getting the members of such societies
into the C. L. S. C.?
A GENTLEMAN: There is.
MR. GILLET: It is not necessary to abandon the organization that
already exists to have all the members read the text books of the C. L.
S. C. The work can be done under the organization existing, the circle
reading the books and reporting to the central office.
MR. GILLET: There is a little bit of tract about an inch and a quarter
square, of four pages, that gives the points of the C. L. S. C. At
Island Park we sent persons to the back of the audience with a bunch of
these tracts, scattered them in the air and everybody was curious to
get them and read them. I think a good many became interested who would
not but for these little bits of things.
MR. BRIDGE: I will have 20,000 of them here to-morrow night for
distribution.
MR. GILLET: Then, of course, you can get the Popular Education Circular
by addressing Miss Kimball. It contains the full plans of the C. L.
S. C., and you can use them in your correspondence. Any thing else to
Suggest?
A LADY: There would be no difficulty in organizing circles, but how
shall we get people to understand the work and the methods that are
adopted? A great many very intelligent persons have given so little
attention to this movement as to be utterly in the dark. It will
require a good deal of persistence in this work of organizing circles.
I have had five years’ experience. I have been through the class of
’82, and have, unfortunately for the circle, I think, been retained
as leader of the circle. We have four circles which coöperate. We
found some difficulty in interesting the pastors of the churches in
this work. I wish every member of the C. L. S. C. here when she goes
home, because I rely on the ladies, to go to her pastor and personally
solicit him to take hold of this work and assist her to organize a
local circle. We did this in our circle. We secured the services of
the pastor as president. We interested him. He took hold of it, and
has been quite an assistance to us all the time. I content myself with
taking a book and sitting as superintendent, so as to keep the work
going on.
It will be necessary to go to young men and women, and older persons,
and personally solicit them to join; personally explain to them the
nature of the course of reading, and how it is done. You will have
to do that by going to them personally until you get them, and then
it will require a good deal of grace and a good deal of energy and
perseverance to keep them in the Circle after they are there. Young
men who work all day at the bench, or in the office at their books,
complain that they have not time to read, and you have to overcome that
objection. You must show them that they have the time, and that they
can do it. Why, almost every young man, and I may say almost every
young woman, spends more time reading the daily newspapers than it
would require to read the whole course of the C. L. S. C. in any year.
By bringing these things to the attention of these persons you may thus
induce them to make an extra exertion in this line.
I say to them in this way, that so far as I am personally concerned, I
have not an hour in a week, I have not five minutes in a day to devote
to this work, yet for the purpose of inducing them to go into the work,
to go into the course of reading, I make the sacrifice and do double
work. When they see that one person can do that, they feel like making
the effort themselves.
Then I have gone to the newspaper offices and have written up reports
of the meetings of the circle. I have taken occasion in these little
articles, writing up the proceedings of our meetings, to explain what
was meant by the C. L. S. C. course of reading. There are a thousand
things we might do for the purpose of inciting an interest in this work.
MR. GILLET: It has been suggested that members might arrange for a
series of meetings in September in the cities or large towns near to
their homes and send out to these cities or villages one or two of
the members of their own circle to talk about the C. L. S. C. and
answer such questions as might be asked, requesting the pastors of
the churches to announce that the meeting would be held on such an
evening of the week. Then let them proceed at once to the organization
of a local circle, and appoint persons to take charge of it. I think
that there are very few towns in which such local circles could not
be organized, if such a course should be taken. Any suggestions in
this line? I want to call your attention to another thing, and call
out a few suggestions upon as interesting a proposition as the other
one. It may be delicate, and I hardly know whether we may be helped by
stating it, but I think we may, and I will take the risk, at least,
of presenting it. We recognize the fact that a great many people who
are connected with the C. L. S. C. are poor; that a great many more
would be connected with it but for the fact that they are unable to
provide the necessary books, or to incur the simple expense even that a
membership in the C. L. S. C. involves. I would like to know if there
are any here who have any ways in connection with their local circle
work to reach such cases. I think it would aid other circles, and help
in aiding a deserving class of people that we are not able now to
benefit.
A GENTLEMAN: If some person who has graduated would loan his books to
persons who were pursuing the course, it would help them.
MR. GILLET: So far as the books would be usable. The books are changed
somewhat each year.
A LADY: We have in Cincinnati a fund for that purpose. We get a few
lecturers each year, and have a fund for that purpose. Last year we
sent to the different libraries sets of our C. L. S. C. books, and we
hope to do that every year, so that we can reach our members through
the public libraries by tickets, so that some will not have to buy any
books, except the little ten cent books.
MR. GILLET: How many sets of the larger books? Just one set?
A LADY: No, sir, we duplicate some of them. We duplicated the astronomy
and some of the larger books.
MR. GILLET: I think the point mentioned is a good one, sets of books
in the City Library, and the Women’s Christian Temperance Library, or
the Y. M. C. A. libraries, or in the church libraries, or Sunday-school
libraries. Any other suggestions?
A GENTLEMAN: That would be the best plan—to put them into the
Sunday-school libraries.
MR. BRIDGE: We have in New Haven a Women’s Christian Association with
a very flourishing C. L. S. C. branch. There is no membership in the
Y. M. C. A. as such. I think it would be a good thing for our Women’s
Associations in the towns and cities to make circles of the C. L. S. C.
A GENTLEMAN: In the place where I am there was no regular circle. We
only read a partial course, but we intend to join this Circle this
year. We gave some entertainments, and we have a fund of $200 to buy
books for this circle.
A GENTLEMAN: In the local circle to which I belong we had a course of
lectures which netted us a little sum of money, and we invested that in
two sets of C. L. S. C. books last year, and there were two members who
were able to join us who would not otherwise have done so.
WRITTEN QUESTION: What would be suggested as the next step after an
interview with the pastor and his refusing to assist?
MR. GILLET: Organize without him. I do not know of any other way.
A GENTLEMAN: In large cities many churches have lyceums and literary
societies. The city of New York was my birthplace, and until a few
years I never heard of the C. L. S. C., and, therefore, I think the
suggestion to advertise it very wise, especially in all the large
cities. Where there are church lyceums the C. L. S. C. could be very
well introduced without having to go through the introductory stage.
In this way these church organizations could be made very efficient,
I believe. Then church organizations so organized have gone through
the initiatory steps. I speak from experience, because I know that in
these organizations they lack very much the literary portion, and they
need some such systematic work as mapped out by the C. L. S. C., to
make them more practical and beneficial. In these large cities you have
the organization ready at your hand, and all you want is to give the
impetus and the necessary instructions, and put before them this work.
I speak of such cities as Newark, New York and Buffalo. There is not so
much knowledge in them as there is in some of our small inland towns.
MR. GILLET: A very admirable suggestion. One of the ways in which this
correspondence committee would be of vast service to the C. L. S. C.
would be along this line.
MR. BRIDGE: New York City has only one local circle.
MR. GILLET: Of course there are readers there, but no local circles.
There is very little being done in Chicago. That ought not to be so.
If persons who are members, who have a little leisure, will assist the
correspondence committee in the circulation of advertising matter and
in personal letter writing each year, it will be a great help. I think
the problem in advertising is this—an advertisement is headed with the
letters C. L. S. C., perhaps in a magazine, and people think it may be
some secret society, or something else, and turn from the page.